Comments

It’s not incidental that this (Catholic) MP has two gay brothers. It’s always interesting to find that once a gay person is humanised, people close to that person tend to become much more accepting and much more interested in the well-being and equality of gays.

I can’t wait for Australia to properly join the precious few countries that have equalised marriage.

“He said his Catholic faith was a “private matter” and he had no qualms about speaking out in support of gay marriage.”
So many things said exactly right — he’s my favorite kind of Catholic.

Well … yes and no. Sure, the outcome of compartmentalizing contradictory beliefs is, in this case, a good one. If you’re going to believe stupid things then considering them a “private matter” is probably not only easier on others, but easier on yourself, too. You’re going to be consonant with reality.

But there’s something so intellectually dishonest and even devious about the whole process of ‘compartmentalization’ that I have to hold back on the kudos a bit. When the method is wrong, it matters. I’d rather people drag their superstitions and prejudices out into the light of the public square to be examined and debated than pin my hopes on people being able to maintain that dicey little balance between believing something as cosmically true, but not true enough for public consumption.

I’d rather people drag their superstitions and prejudices out into the light of the public square to be examined and debated than pin my hopes on people being able to maintain that dicey little balance between believing something as cosmically true, but not true enough for public consumption.

This works well for minor superstitions and incidental beliefs, but recent events within this community have taught me that such room for ‘debate’ simply provides bigots with public fora in which to repeat their idiocies ad nauseam, and that it’s not so bad if instead they’re forced to crawl back under rocks and die alone in the dark.

In fact, isn’t the whole point of bills and charters of rights is that, once written, they’re not up for debate, so as to preclude demagogues from convincing the public through oratorical prowess to commit heinous acts?

This is my very real problem with free speech. In principle, obviously I feel that I vehemently support it – even the speech I disrespect or even despise.

But then, I look around at the way the most despicable ideologies are becoming mainstream (again!) and gaining/entrenching enormous power through superior control of messaging, and I realise that this is a dangerous problem!

Yet, curtailment of free speech is, obviously, an even more dangerous problem, especially when I consider who presently holds the power to limit the freedoms of others (and are currently succeeding in limiting rights – including to free speech in some media).

What I want to know is why oh why can’t liberal thinkers ever seem to do any better than play catch-up with the right-wing strategists? Damn it! Why?

What the hell is Gay Marriage, anyway? When I write this, I am writing, not gay writing. When I drove my car to work yesterday, I didn’t gay drive it. If I were gay and had a partner, I would kiss him, not gay kiss him.

When are people going to see that when two people decide to get married, it doesn’t f’n matter what gender they are.

I don’t even understand why this is a matter for debate, but yes, Australians are also wrestling with the idea of legalizing gay marriage. It shouldn’t be an issue, but there it is.

It’s understandable that people would struggle with the notion that gay marriage is “immoral,” since they inherited a culture which taught that for a couple thousand years. People will struggle with anything that departs from their social norms. But I’d argue that the deeper problem is that people have an underlying belief that it’s OK to enforce their morality on others.

Consider Pastor Martin “Eat da Poo Poo” Ssempa. His audience obviously had no familiarity with homosexuality or the practices of homosexuals; else they’d have had no need to listen to his introduction to the subject, and they’d have laughed him out of the room for his distorted reporting. These are people who are dubious, not to mention frightened, about homosexuality, and who–based on the reports they got–suppose that it’s awfully disgusting, if not immoral. To the extent they’re misinformed, and equate homosexuality with coprophagy, we can laugh at their ignorance, but they’re nevertheless entitled to their personal opinions.

The problem is that they imagine it’s OK to forbid things they think are gross, upon pain of imprisonment, fine, etc. Suppose that Ssempa were strictly accurate: suppose that the anus is indeed a-licked “like ice cream”; and suppose that sometimes “the poopoo comes out”; and that “they eat the poopoo.” If all of that were true, it would certainly gross out many of us–but it still wouldn’t change the fact that we have no business forcing people to do or not do things based on our opinions. Don’t like it? Don’t eat da poo poo. Ssempa was counting on everyone’s unspoken assumption that it’s our business to forcibly prevent people doing things that in no way harm us, but that we find disagreeable.

If we relinquish this belief that it’s OK to control others by force, then things like gay marriage, women’s rights, etc., fall out for free. On the other hand advocates of gay marriage, women’s rights, etc., often themselves subscribe to the belief that it’s OK to control others by force, in which case they’ve already granted the bigots’ core premise. They disagree only on who should do the controlling.

When are people going to see that when two people decide to get married, it doesn’t f’n matter what gender they are.

You’re looking at it from a reasonable, mature point of view. You’ve got to look at it from the “gays is icky” and “gawd hates gays” and “it’ll make me divorce my wife and marry a man” point of view. You know, the idiotic, hating, fearful angle. :-þ

You’re looking at it from a reasonable, mature point of view. You’ve got to look at it from the “gays is icky” and “gawd hates gays” and “it’ll make me divorce my wife and marry a man” point of view. You know, the idiotic, hating, fearful angle. :-þ

Effective immediately, I, as a man who happens to conform to currently conventional heterosexual orientation, shall henceforth gay drive to show solidarity with gay people everywhere. Watch me as I pass by… in the fabulous lane.

I often instruct people to head gayly forward, rather than straight in my directions. I have a firm belief that everyone should comport themselves in a civilised manner. To do so involves moving in the appropriate direction.

Countries that have not equalised marriage could learn something valuable here, I think.

Up here in the Great White North, gay marriage was legalized under a Catholic Prime Minister while under the threat of the damnation of his eternal soul (evidence missing) by one Bishop Fred F*%!ing Henry.

The positive side is that these days those who oppose gay marriage do have to try to come up with actual reasons why they think that it is a bad idea. Not so long ago the fact that God disapproved would have settled the matter. It shows how far we have progressed when God’s disapproval only invites derisive laughter, that and the fact that the Bible is pretty big on polygamy. When it comes to these actual reasons, they can’t actually come up with any, not only that, in the places where gay marriage has been legalised, non of their dire predictions have come true.

What they hate is that gay relationships are just pure sex with no risk of pregnancy. Sex is meant to produce babies; sex without that possibly is pure decadence. They see marriage is just to produce babies so gay partners are forbidden. Love is purely secondary to marriage; not its sole justification.

What they hate is that gay relationships are just pure sex with no risk of pregnancy.

Considering the by-now-almost-expected hypocrisy among the anti-marriage equality proponents—the male ones, at least—it seems that what they hate about gay relationships is that out homosexuals have them openly.

I doubt child-bearing or any of the other arguments they publicly make actually come into it for them.

I am so going to totally try gay driving tomorrow. Any tips? What should I know about? Can I gay commute by bus too? I don’t know too much about this kind of thing.

If it’s anything like gay sitting, which I happen to be doing this very momen—oops, fell back to traditional sitt—now I’m gay sitting agai—fuck, lost it—there we go!—it’s a snap, once you get used to it.

djfav, saying that hijacking polls is wrong, and quite possibly maybe even perhaps illegal, is wrong, and quite possibly maybe even perhaps illegal. Lucky for you, I had already gay-finished my coffee, else I’d have gay-spewed a gay mouthful of it on my gay MacBook Pro*.

Let me draw you a picture. Online polls are silly. There is no way to verify that their results represent the constituency you thought. Their only purpose is to give readers the illusion that their opinions matter, and in some cases, to try to validate those opinions in the face of outnumbering contrary opinion.

If hijacking polls is wrong, and quite possibly maybe even perhaps illegal, then closing, resetting, or rewording polls is also wrong, and quite possibly maybe even perhaps illegal. We’ve seen that happen a few times once the publishers became aware that their little poll was being hijacked.

We’ve also had polls get hijacked the other way once in a while. We’re not clutching-at-perls upset when this happens, for simply illustrates the thesis. Online polls are silly and deserve to get hijacked.

* I don’t know if it’s actually gay, but it’s really quite elegant and looks really good when illuminated with track lighting. And I happen to know that some gay people worked on it. You know what they say about such things.

Thomathy: “It’s not incidental that this (Catholic) MP has two gay brothers. It’s always interesting to find that once a gay person is humanised, people close to that person tend to become much more accepting and much more interested in the well-being and equality of gays.”

Unfortunately it doesn’t always work that way. One of the most virulently anti-gay MPs in Australia (Bob Katter) has a gay half-brother who recently came out on national TV.

(Funnily enough, Katter is currently in a Tea Party-style alliance with a well-known public figure who is generally assumed to be gay. But it’s never quite been confirmed, so said person’s fanbase manage to stay in denial.)

This was a debate when I was a kid. I’m now an adult, and it’s still a debate. I’m starting to wish that it would just be settled already.

With that being said some parties do have a policy of booting out any members who cross the floor on a conscience vote…which immediately undermines the entire concept of the conscience vote. If this was put to a conscience vote (as it ought to be) most will vote with the party rather than lose their jobs, which is probably why they keep voting no even though majority public opinion is in either the ‘for’ or ‘don’t give a fuck’ camps.

Or maybe they just don’t get the concept of democracy, that is to say ‘we elected you to represent our opinions and if you don’t we’ll vote you out’. Sometimes I think politicians need a reminder of exactly how they got into office.

dartigen, perhaps it will hearten you to realise that it wasn’t a debate at all when I was a kid. Back then, it was utterly verboten to so much as mention the existence of gays or lesbians. When I was a teen, the debate was whether to *decriminalise* homosexual acts. Marriage wasn’t even thought of! The first Sydney Mardi Gras – a protest march, not a pride parade – was in 1978.

So we are moving. Not as fast as you’d like, but still it’s a huge change over a few decades.

On the other hand advocates of gay marriage, women’s rights, etc., often themselves subscribe to the belief that it’s OK to control others by force, in which case they’ve already granted the bigots’ core premise. They disagree only on who should do the controlling.

Could you expand that bit a little? I know there is always some authoritarian types in any crowd, but you said often.

This gives me the perfect opportunity to quote Scalzi, which I love doing at every opportunity because he says it so much better than I could:

I support gay marriage because I support marriage. I support gay marriage because I support equal rights under the law. I support gay marriage because I want to deny those who would wall off people I know and love as second-class citizens. I support gay marriage because I like for people to be happy, and happy with each other. I support gay marriage because I love to go to weddings, and this means more of them. I support gay marriage because my marriage is strengthened rather than lessened by it — in the knowledge that marriage is given to all those who ask for its blessings and obligations, large and small, until death do they part. I support gay marriage because I should. I support gay marriage because I am married.

Poll after poll shows that the majority of Australians support (gay) marriage equality. In fact, a lot more people support (gay) marriage equality than voted for the present government. The government continues to spout the fact that they have a mandate from the people to govern. How then is the mandate of 51% of the public enough to legitimise a government, and yet support for an issue that has been at over 70% for several years now not enough to get the government to act. More people support (gay) marriage equality than do the carbon tax. (Gay) marriage equality will have zero economic impact on anyone, except florists, caterers and gift shops. It wont disadvantage a single person. It will increase the happiness of not only the GLBT community, but all those others in the community who will be able to celebrate and share in the social ritual of marriage. That this government, and this Prime Minister, can continue to deny every Australian the right to marry, is a matter for which they should be deeply ashamed.

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